


Burgundy

by plaidventurer



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesiac Grunkle Stan, Blood and Injury, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Sorry, Older Pines Twins, POV Stan, Stangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 18:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10860030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plaidventurer/pseuds/plaidventurer
Summary: You don't know who you are and there's something awfully important that you're forgetting (burgundy burgundy burgundy), but when you see the yellow light hovering in the woods, your blood runs like ice under your skin.





	Burgundy

**Author's Note:**

> I began writing this as a canon divergence piece based on the idea that Stan may have not fully recovered from his temporary amnesia following Weirdmageddon. Darkness and angst ensued. Thank you for reading!

It’s Thursday. You have an odd feeling that someone...someone reminded you of that fact this morning, over a cup of coffee. Good, you can remember what happened earlier. That’s good. That’s a start.

 

Gravity Falls is where you are. Oregon. Check. That much you know, even if the details are a little (yeah, okay, a lot) fuzzy and you woke up in a panic because your brain was on fire-- _blue, blue, flames EVERYWHERE and the SCREAMING_ ~~and Axolotl~~ \--and you couldn't remember your name.

 

Well, you still can't, but at least you're making _some_ progress, right?

 

Your fingertips drum against the armchair. It’s familiar in a foggy way, hidden behind heavy, dark drapes until you brush your calloused hands along the worn fabric to ruffle up the edges. Then the tiniest sliver of light peeks through in golden realization until the curtains swing shut once more.

 

You woke up comfortably in this chair that seems to be molded to fit your form. Ergo, it must be something you do relatively often. Probably. It's the only logic that makes sense right now, and the only reasoning you've got.

 

There’s a blanket cast over you and tucked around your knees. Navy blue and coated in tiny balls of burgundy fuzz. It’s cozy, but almost too much so. You aren’t used to being covered, _safe_ , you think, but it feels like it’s growing on you, or the person you’re supposed to be.

 

Cushions lie haphazardly at your feet, pressed up against each other on the floor like some kind of jelly bean-shaped bed. Orange dust coats the carpet beneath an overturned bowl. An empty coffee mug rests beside it and a book of sudoku puzzles that is opened to a solved page. This strikes a chord in your head and you listen to it vibrate for a moment before the sensation winks out again and you are left in a limbo of real and memory.

 

The television is on. Some show with a duck waddling by plays with the volume muted and static buzzing through the poor picture quality. You look at the grainy screen and wonder if this is familiar, too. You ponder this, and there’s something nagging in the back of your head sending awful shivers all over you, like when your fifth grade teacher would drag her cat-like purple fingernails into the chalkboard with a wretched screeching sound. Her nail polish was always chipped because of it, even on days when she'd just freshly applied new coats that morning.

 

Somebody used to observe and tell you that, trying to be clever. They were always so clever, they never even should have tried to impress. _Somebody_ , but _God_ why can't you _remember_ \--

 

That memory is very vivid, strangely so, and it surfaces to you with a shudder. Your bones creak as you stand up so you definitely aren’t ten years old anymore, but you don’t exactly know who _you_ is at this point, so.

 

It’s dark outside. You leave the blanket on the chair and shuffle over to the nearest window. Your slippered feet make a lazy scuffing noise against the floorboards that bounce a little under your weight.

 

The man gazing back at you in the glass looks quizzical, a little distressed. Wrinkled. Tired. And as the window slides up with a click, the face disappears with the lemon light of the lamp shining like a halo behind it.

 

Your bare arms sting against the night air. The breeze on your cheeks is a cool alternative to that suffocating weight of a hot blanket. Although, who are you to complain. If it wasn’t summer…

 

You stand up a little straighter, back popping. _Summer_ , that's right. It's summer, and the smoldering sun just slipped below the Oregon treeline a few hours ago after roasting everything beneath its gaze. The sky was blue all day, like, _purely_ blue, the kind that only ever comes on a day with promise, as Mabel likes to say. And then you remember her, too, as you pick up a framed picture from the small table adjacent to the window sill.

 

There's you, and Dipper--your nephew, that’s right-- and your favorite şħøøŧĭŉğ şŧäŗ in one of her bright pink wool sweaters. The person whose body you’re inhabiting is posing for the camera with a grin on his face, gray hair tucked just barely under a fez. It's comical, almost, but not as much as the expression on Dipper’s face. You've got his head wedged under your arm in a feigned choke hold, and his eyes are so wide and surprised that you chuckle affectionately as the frame sits gently in your hand.

 

The weathered face of _you_ stares up, but when you search for something, any kind of click or recognition or spark, there is only a blank gray space inside your head. All you can do is match it with the person that had reflected in the window glass and wonder if it's accurate. It sobers you almost immediately.

 

It's the little gains of memory that matter, though, right?

 

_Baby steps._

 

You set the picture down carefully, peering out into the woods again. The trees are all indigo in their silence, and the faintest fraction of a moon peeks along the edge of the forest. It's very peaceful. Too much so. _Unfamiliar._ Warning bells.

 

The quietude must be because there is no noise of pattering feet coming from upstairs or pigs squealing (or Mabel squealing, too, for that matter). An absence of sound, of presence, feels like trying on an old suit that hasn't been touched in years. Bow tie and all. That's because Dipper and Mabel and that funny voice inside your head have been keeping you company over the months, you know, since it's summer and they're back for their second year. Here in good ‘ole Gravity Falls. You haven’t been alone in quite a while.

 

It's mildly concerning why they aren't up and about, but you reason that since they're just kids they must be sleeping. It's...what, past midnight? There are no clocks near enough to let you know. That puts a little twinge in your chest because every detail counts.

 

_You can do it. I’m here. Every detail matters, just try to breathe and remember for me Sta--_

 

For a moment you grasp at the memory, but it slips through wide fingers like golden light. It feels warm and safe like burgundy, almost, but you frown because that’s a color and not a thing or being. It feels like water and the ocean breeze with the smell of coffee and balsam and bright laughter carried along into the waves.

 

_ğēŧŧïŉğ äŵƒũļļɏ ƥøēŧïč, äŗēŉ’ŧ ŵē?_

 

You hum some 40s tune that's been stuck in your head since you woke up quietly under your breath and scrub a hand down your face, waiting and hoping and believing that maybe something else will come back. Everything is muddled, though. Your brain is cloudy and soupier than evening fog.

 

What looks like a kitchen connects to the room you’re idling in. Cereal crunches under your feet when you walk in, and there are still four dirty bowls left in the sink, buried by a stack of slimy dishes. You wonder, briefly, if the person you’re failing to remember as yourself is a slob, or if this is just what comes from keeping teenagers around all the time.

 

There’s another window in here by the table and you open it, too. You pause with your fingers on the sill and mentally tick off the list once more.

 

With the right triggers, you've concluded that it is summer, a Thursday, and you are currently living in Gravity Falls with Mabel and Dipper, who are your family.

 

Another pause. Your brain is whirring and clicking, _searching_ for something else. Something that's been poking and prodding at you since you got up.

 

Are Dipper and Mabel the only…?

 

_Wait._

 

A light flickers in the woods outside the window.

 

It's deep in the trees, merely a pinprick in the _wħøļē_ of the _ğäļäxïēş äŉđ ũŉįvēŗşēş ũŉčøɱƥŗēħēŉđēđ ɓɏ ɱēŉ ļïķē ɏøũ_  but the yellowness sends a strong chill down your spine and you stand, frozen, by the window.

 

Sirens scream and pound inside your head, and you know instantly, through some unspoken instinct, that this is inherently very, very bad.

 

This is danger and the kids are sleeping upstairs but that's only what you thought before, and you don't know if they _are_.

 

You don't know a lot of things.

 

Just that this thing in the forest is something that can't coexist with you on this earth.

 

The floorboards creak and you are moving. Where? Certainly not into the woods. Definitely not, because with the yellow comes the _screaming_ and _burning_ and the _kids are crying you're crying someone is crying for you_ \--it’s all out there and you have to turn away, but your feet are going too fast to reverse now.

 

Then you realize faintly where you are when the lock clicks, mind numb and senses dulled, and it gives you a sort of grim satisfaction. The weight in your arms is comforting. Comforting like pine trees and burgundy but not yellow, _never_ yellow unless it's used in the right ways.

 

Everything is gray-green aside from that ominous light in the woods. It grows and brightens eerily in the trees. Mockingly. It taunts you, whispers _Ħēŗē Į äɱ, ɏøũ ŧħøũğħŧ ɏøũ čøũĮđ ķįļļ ɱē?_ from the bark, the branches, the very _being_ of every fir. The beams from it are triangular and sharp.

 

You feel deathly calm. Stone-still until the door latch falls and the pair of hinges cry softly and mournfully in the dark.

 

Breathe, low and quiet. Breathe, and watch the swaying of the light.

 

Watch the fog between the bushes as it swirls deeper and deeper like your mind and the sea, twisting and curling like ten fingers wrapped around your shaking own to hold you steady.

 

_Į đø ɓēļïēvē ɏøũ äŗē ɱïşčøũŉŧïŉğ._

 

Your vision blurs along the edges. It cracks and smolders like damaged and long-forgotten film reels. The rest is flecked with red but that's okay because this is your mission now. You're a hero, remember? You don't have to know your name to recall that feeling of being wanted, of being _worth_ something. It drives you, this need to protect your niece and nephew from that _thing_ in the woods, and it grounds your steps.

 

One, crunch of gravel.

 

Two, crunch of gravel.

 

Three fourfive, squish of wet grass beneath your feet.

 

Six, crack of twig.

 

The light swings towards you in surprise, and its voice is sputtering out slowly, but the words are garbled and backwards like a tape on rewind beneath the haze of red and yellow you see. And you remember this, this feeling of helplessness and fear in the face of such speech. You hate it.

 

You hold steady all by yourself without need of ten or twelve or however many fingers reaching forward to help you. Or stop you. You'll never know with the rush of blood pounding in your veins and head and the cold between your fingers turning to burning hot, but that's okay.

 

It's okay, and the wood makes gentle contact with your cheek.

 

You hold out your hand to make a deal.

 

 _Click_.

 

There's a ringing in your ears and the newly-woken birds fly and scream from darkened treetop heights. The light crashes into the underbrush far louder than it should, loud enough to pierce through the blown-out senselessness of your ears. It's only a yellow light, it should be gone, you _stomped it out_ , but through the smoke you see that it's still glowing from where it has crumpled paces ahead of you.

 

Blind rage and terror bleed through all of you, every part and place and person, and you want to punch the daylights out of this beast. This demon. You feel the break and burn and you _run_.

 

You run to where the yellow hit the ground so you can aim again. It's making strange wet noises now, almost sounding like (you realize with disgust) crying, but it never showed weakness before. Not until the very end. That must be close, thank God. Your mind is on a loop of _stay dead stay dead we KILLED you_.

 

A voice snickers, _įŧ’ş ŉøŧ ŧħäŧ ēäşɏ,_ **_Şŧäŉļēɏ_** _,_ and something cold drops in your stomach.

 

And the metal in your loose fingers hits rocks.

 

And you fall.

 

And your knees are soaked in blood and you're sobbing, hands shaking in the drenched dirt and folds of his clothes. Of his _flesh_ , gushing black and flayed open to the sky. And he's shuddering violently, forming whispery breaths that feel faint and small against the crook of your elbow when you lean over him.

 

The lantern’s sunflower glow shines sickly across both of you, streaming into the soil and the roots of every tree that watches idly. It reflects against the curvature of a barrel you didn't realize you had, from a safe you never meant to unlock. One of its multifaceted panes is cracked. Broken glass sparkles in your brother’s hair under the stars.

 

“Ford, oh God, oh God, nonono--” Your hands slide over the slippery wound. His chest is heaving, but air seems to get stuck in his throat with a rattling noise that makes you want to throw up. The gap under your palm is hot and sticky and you can't look into his eyes now, but you have to. You have to but when you do, bile rises in your throat and you can’t inhale or exhale or do anything. They're owlishly big and dark and so, so, so close. It's surreal, almost, that his blown-wide pupils swallow all refractions of yellow in the woods. Ford has such intelligent eyes, eyes that scream with realization and (often) equally present agitation, but now they are voids. Almost, you note, like the one he fell into thirty years before, although right now everything is golden and you ache for ocean blue.

 

_He said he was going out for a bit._

 

A screen door clicks somewhere behind you, and you vaguely register a young, sleepy voice calling your name. “Grunkle Stan?” Not Stanford, the name you stole from the man that’s here with you. The man that’s _bleeding_ _and bleeding oh God he’s_ dying _Stanley you just got him back how_ could _you_. It’s Stanley, the name you killed to remember.

 

_Said he'd be back late. Had some nocturnal creatures to research._

 

Jumpy pulse. Burgundy-black (the color of his favorite sweater burgundy _burgundy_ ) spurting out in buckets and buckets. Hold him steady, you have to, come on.

 

_He told you to stay behind and get your rest._

 

His six-fingered hands are folded over yours, clutching and scrambling for purchase, and he's mumbling something feverishly through the red draining down the side of his cheek. You bend down even nearer, close enough to see his lashes flutter as his restless eyes dart and blink and stare, and you can just barely hear him speak. His voice is a low whine; specks of red fly onto your glasses.

 

"Mm..m'sorry," he coughs first. “Can’t...can’t tell you enough, Sta...thank you...thank you…”

 

You choke and some foreign, wounded cry comes from between clenched teeth. It’s raw and animalistic and too much. “Not now, Ford, not here.” Your fist drives itself into the ground beside his leg. The rocks pierce your knuckles like glass. Like bullets. 

 

Ford’s hitching breath is metallic and his touch is cool. Your face is burning and running like rain.

 

“No, no, it's not supposed to be like this, I didn't mean--”

 

You put pressure on the gaping hole in your brother and he whimpers, nails biting into your skin. Crescent moon wells of blood appear on your wrist.

 

"Thank me later, please, Sixer," you plead, brushing shards out of his hair and intertwining it with your fingers. Your hands are covered in cuts from the glass and blood but most of it (nearly all of it, actually, and isn't that sickening) is his. "C'mon, breathe for me," you say, like he said to you in every lapse and every moment of fear or panic. Now, he just looks at you sadly through half-lidded eyes.

 

Ford’s face is pale and illuminated by yellow. The purple stains under his eyes are deeper than the fog or the oceans or anything under the sun, and you don’t mind them like you do usually, not now, because right now your twin can’t go to sleep. He just _can’t_. For once you’re putting your foot down, and he can be as stubborn as he likes on any other occasion for any other reason but not now. Never now.

 

You haven’t argued with him nearly as much as on the Stan ‘O War II now that you’re back in a house with space and two wild kids. You’re grateful, suddenly, that your last conscious words to him weren’t angry or hateful or anything you'd regret. In fact, they were mundane and ordinary, as it should be. Just, “See ya later, Poindexter. Don’t catch pneumonia out there, you’re too ancient for that now.” And Ford had scoffed, and rolled his eyes, and he gave you a wide grin as he shut the door behind him with a lantern swinging in his hand.

 

“Why does he still have that old thing?” You yawned to Mabel, who was sitting on your lap and knitting a new scarf or sweater or something else amazing. The burgundy yarn wound all around the blue blanket across your knees, leaving little scraps of fuzz and fluff to tickle your nose. She had told you before that it was for Grunkle Ford; after all, burgundy is his favorite color.

 

She only wriggled closer and you remembered faintly that you were the one who kept that nostalgic and likely highly unsafe lantern, after all. You’d kept everything perfectly for Ford until he came back. Until you could get him back.

 

Why couldn’t you keep him after you got him?

 

It’s barely even chilly under the trees but you shiver almost as badly as Ford, now. His chest rattles and you shout muffled cries into the trench coat that's crumpled tightly in your white-knuckled grip. In the dark, his irises only reflect your panicking face, though you know he'd probably prefer to die looking up at the stars and all the night skies have to behold or some shit. Ford always loved constellations. On your boat, the two of you would lay on your aging backs for hours to watch the heavens, usually for no reason other than to catch up on years you would take back in an instant. You’d drink lukewarm hot chocolate together and when he'd actually get enough sleep to function you'd laugh with him and breathe in his scent of Oregon balsam and coffee. You were starved for this, this brotherhood and bonding and everything, and a little amnesia wasn't going to get in your way.

 

Maybe you should have stayed at sea a bit longer. Maybe you should have pushed Ford to test your mind more thoroughly, even though he stated quite surely that no trace of the demon could remain. Your memory lapses had stopped coming so frequently, even after you and Ford decided that a few months away from the sea and around the kids would do you good as a refresher, but you wish with a twist in your gut that you would have spoken out at the start.

 

Now look where you are.

 

You can't imagine why Stanford is choosing to lock gazes with you now, holding your arm weakly with both hands and blinking sluggishly. He's giving you a gentle smile with those bloodied lips and it's tense and pained but hopeful, like...like you…

 

_Şïxēŗ äŉđ Į ɱäđē ä đēäļ ŧøø, ɏøũ ķŉøw._

 

You don’t...He's not breathing, _oh God_ , he's not breathing, _what have I done what have I done--_

  
_‘Ŧïļ đēäŧħ đø ũş ƥäŗŧ._


End file.
